Well, I decided to aim for an audio Chomsky primer. A Chomsky distiller. Rather than allow myself to ask him questions about current events, which will become dated and obscured by the mists of time a decade from now, I attempted to capture the over-arching themes of his political activism of the last 50 years and to explore the personal motivation behind his activism. I completely avoided his work in linguistics, which would have been completely over my head.

Of course – I failed. I’m not that good an interviewer and I didn’t have enough of his time to even begin to put 50 years of social activism into context. But you shoot for the stars, right?

Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph.D (born December 7, 1928) is the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, often considered the most significant contribution to the field of theoretical linguistics of the 20th century. He also helped spark the cognitive revolution in psychology through his review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, which challenged the behaviorist approach to the study of mind and language dominant in the 1950s. His naturalistic approach to the study of language has also impacted the philosophy of language and mind (see Harman, Fodor). He is also credited with the establishment of the so-called Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. Chomsky is also widely known for his political activism, and for his criticism of the foreign policy of the United States and other governments. Chomsky describes himself as a libertarian socialist, a sympathizer of anarcho-syndicalism.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, between 1980 and 1992 Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any living scholar, and the eighth most cited source overall.

Bono of U2 called Chomsky a “rebel without a pause, the Elvis of academia.” Rage Against The Machine took copies of his books on tour with the band. Pearl Jam ran a small pirate radio on one of their tours, playing Chomsky talks mixed along with their music. R.E.M. asked Chomsky to go on tour with them and open their concerts with a lecture (he declined).

However, he is also one of the most reviled people in America. Google Chomsky and you will find plenty of articles and sites dedicated to besmirching his reputation. He’s called the “Ayatollah of Anti-American Hate” and “the most treacherous intellect in America”. Wikipedia has a whole section devoted to criticisms of his work and of him as an individual. The far right hate him for questioning American foreign policy and for suggesting that American imperialism is alive and well. The far left despise him for not being left enough. The mainstream media ignore him for reasons best understood by themselves (you wouldn’t want to get in the way of people watching Reality TV, right?). The intellectuals hate him for questioning their silence.

Outside of America he is considered one of the few voices who have had the bravery and stamina to publicly question his country’s behaviour, day after day, year after year, for 50 years.

Whether you agree with his positions or not, this is a man who has devoted a large part of his life to truth and justice and is considered by many to be the world’s leading thinker.

> Steve Rubel, Vice President, Client Services at CooperKatz and Company, a mid-size PR firm in midtown New York City, and the guy behind the well-read Micro Persuasion weblog.

We started the chat by following on from the panel that Steve moderated where he asked the question “what does ‘markets are conversations’ really mean?” and then got into a general discussion about the current state of blogging.

Listen closely for the moment when Steve made us all go misty eyed. It was a beautiful moment and not one that I want to trivialize at all, because it’s actually quite a powerful idea.

Suw Charman is the Producer of BlogOn2005 which is happening at the Copa-Copacabana hotel in NEW YORK CITY on October 17 and 18, and she took some time our of her very busy schedule to chat with me about the agenda for the event. This is not going to be your usual “blogger love-in”, where A-list bloggers give each other the secret handshake and the rest of the crowd whimper and kowtow.

I guess now that Jason and Dave are mega-MEGA rich, we will have to kowtow to their body doubles in future?

Anyway… As I was saying, BlogOn isn’t one of THOSE events. This is an event for regular business people who want to understand what the hell they should be doing about this social media phemonenon that they keep hearing about.

You donâ€™t have to wait any longerâ€¦our new system is all setupâ€¦all of our technology problems have been fixed (fingers crossed) and The Podcast Network is ready to re-enter the world of podcastingâ€¦biggerâ€¦betterâ€¦and stronger than ever.

Stay tuned for some really exciting news next week as we kick this thing back into gear, and I know that all of our excellent hosts along with Cam and myself hope that you have enjoyed the great podcasts that we have been providing for your listening pleasure since February 2005â€¦the ride has just started folks.